Opening of the exhibition of publications about time "MILLENNIUM TRANSITION: TOWARD UNDERSTANDING OF THE TIME PHENOMENON". The exhibition is held by Russian state library and MSU Interdisciplinary temporological seminar.

The exhibition is open 17-23 September. The exhibition is accessible every day by RSL reader's cards or only 19th September 2000 by invitation cards. Invitation cards can be booked by the tel. 939-5560.

Yu. S. VLADIMIROV."ON THE HISTORY OF DOCTRINES ABOUT SPACE-TIME". It is proposed to discuss the evolution of ideas about properties and essence of time and space during the two last centuries. The main emphasis is to be made on metric properties of space and time, their dimensionality and ordering axioms. On the basis of historical study the ways of future development of space-time theory are proposed.

Round table "CRISES - THE MARKS ON THE SCALE OF EVOLUTION".The chairman of the meeting - ALEXEY DAVYDOVICH ARMAND (home telephone number 930-2222). The idea of time makes sense at the presence of the two following conditions: a) directional evolution (trend) and b) intermittence of development. Under these conditions the time becomes a natural attribute of objective world. Intermittence of development is provided by transition across some critical points (phases), in which there is change of a) the program of development and b) the structure of the systems. Empirically the crises are observed in the processes of every scale and quality. The problem is to formulate a general law of alternation of crises and phases of quiet development as consequences of evolution of systems. Some examples of critical phases of development: spontaneous nuclear decay, gravitational collapse of stars, emergence of new biological species, genera etc., change of economic development cycles (Kondratyev's ones and others), change of stages of physical and psychical development of an individual.

V. M. DUBOVIK. "THE WORLD AS SPACE AND TIME" BY A. A. FRIEDMAN". In the report the views of A.A.Friedman, exposed by him in the book "The world as space and time", are explicated. Friedman's monograph begins with a profound historical review of human ideas about properties of space and time from Newton to Einstein. Remarkable fact is that the material is exposed by Friedman as a mathematician when he arises the question about the ways of arithmetization of space, and as a physicist, when he focuses reader's attention on both perception and exact physical experiments on elucidation of the structure of general relativity understanding of space-time. The underlying Weyl geometry is analyzed in detail. The report is resumed by concept of modern physicists and mathematicians about space and time and by appreciation of actuality of Friedman's ideas today.

A. V. KOGANOV. "THE BASIC PRINCIPLES AND AN INTERPRETATION OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY THEORY". SRT arose as a result of empirical refutation of hypothesis about existence of an exceptional frame of reference, in which electromagnetic waves propagate. Such a frame exists for every previously observed waves - this is the rest frame for propagation medium of these waves. But hypothetical propagation medium for photons has been deprived of its reference frame. Actually it implies independence of the observed velocity of light from movement of observer. Nowadays a new aggregate state of matter has been found in quantum mechanics - the physical vacuum, where energy exists only at Planckian intervals of space-time in the form of fluctuations. For them momentum has a maximum indeterminateness, which implies indeterminateness of proper frame of reference for vacuum in every point. We can consider vacuum to be a propagator of massless waves. The wave equations comply with Huygens principle which determines zones of transmission of wave energy as cones in four dimensions. It corresponds to the mathematical structure of conical induction in a space, for which it has been demonstrated that for dimensionality greater than 3 its automorphisms conserve linear structure of the space. Such maps are described by Lorentz group, for which a model has been constructed in a form of Minkowski space. Resolution of paradoxes in set theory resulted in construction of theory of models, in which has been demonstrated non-contradictoriness of every theory having a model. An important distinction of SRT from classical mechanics is relativity of simultaneity for different observers. In formalism of Minkowski space there is a geometrical representation of hyperplane of simultaneity. Time became a vector, and this vector depends on the frame of reference. This formalism allows interpretation of SRT effects as projectional ones. (Liebsher, D.-E. 1977. Relativitatstheorie mit Zirkel und Linen, Akademie-Verlag. Berlin. A.V. Koganov. Automorphisms of conical inductional spaces. Voprosy kibernetiki. Algebra, hypergeometry, probability, modelling. Moscow, 1999, pp. 182-189 (in Russian).).

G. P. AKSYONOV. "FROM ABSOLUTE TIME AND SPACE OF I. NEWTON TO BIOLOGICAL TIME-SPACE OF V. I. VERNADSKY". What does it means "by itself and in its very essence" in I.Newton's definition of time? Euler's version of Newtonian duration. Time of classical mechanics as artifact. Descriptional natural science of XVIII-XIX centuries as cognition of time-order and time-irreversibility. Doctrine of V.I. Vernadsky about living matter and its cosmological meaning. Biological time-space according Vernadsky as universal background of the world.

Round table "TIME IN NON-PHYSICAL SCIENCES, OR PROPER TIME OF SYSTEMS".The chairman of the meeting - VICTOR MIKHAILOVICH SARYCHEV (). Duration and sequence. Variability and constancy. Rhythmical (cyclic) time. Hierarchy of intrinsic time measures. Traces of events. Historical time. Finite time of system existence. Producing of proper system times by living systems. Present, future and past. Cognitive time of human being. Common time of many systems.

V. L. TATKO. "BUNGE-LIKE THINKING ON CAUSALITY (Virtual dialogues with Mario Bunge)".A. Introduction of basic definitions.
1. Template-related and event-related time assessment. The world that we observe and the world that we measure. Boundaries of the personality. Explanation and comprehension extra naturam et intra naturam (L. Levi-Bruhl). Descriptive psychology (W. Diltey). Regulated behavior without rules (H. Dreyfus). 2. Structure of human experience. Mystical knowledge and spiritual practice. "Co-participant" consciousness (Sergey Khoruzhy). 3. To cause and to determinate. B. Epistemological status of the causal principle (CP).
Genesis: the anthropocentric trends. Bringing the idea of order into the nature. Moral law (Testament) and laws of nature. Man as a Lord. Lord as a machine. Time in the Greek civilization and Judaism. Time in Torah. Existentialism and neurosis. C. Definitions of the causal principle. 1. What the CP doesn't claim. Analysis of empirical critics of causality. Analysis of romantic critics of causality. 2. What the CP does claim. Linearity and vector of causality. External nature of causality. The causal and the new. 3. The role of the CP in science. CP and rational cognition. CP and scientific law. CP and scientific explanation. CP and scientific prediction. The status of CP in modern science. Appendix: Discussions about the complementary principle. Brain-mind paradoxes. Correlation and CP. D. The world of indeterminism. The logical positivism and it's critics. T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos, P. Feyerabend. The law and the tendency (K. Popper). E. Noumenal nature of causality. Natural in the primitive thinking. Time points sequence. The singularity. The laws of casual logic. Causa efficiens and continuity of the Creation (R. Descartes). Apotheosis of groundlessness (Lev Shestov). Is subjective time necessarily local?

Round table "RESEARCH PROBLEMS IN MODELING OF TIME FOR NATURALISTS IN NEW CENTURY". The chairman of the meeting - ALEXANDER PETROVICH LEVICH (). Our Seminar on temporology sets up Institute for research of nature of time in the Internet. Heads of chairs-laboratories of the Institute, that prepared pages for the site, will propose for discussion at the Seminar brief versions of their research and educational programs.